The Hammers gave a fine account of themselves and missed chances that could have taken them ahead before some magic in the final third of the game enabled the Gunners to come away with all three points.
When asked to sum up the result Allardyce admitted he was disappointed with the result. “It was probably harsh, but that’s Arsenal for you - if you don’t take advantage of your chances when you get them then they will punish you and they certainly punished us towards the end of the game.”
“Obviously the disappointing thing from our point of view was actually getting our noses in front and finally ending up losing at home. It was a great team we were playing against and we’ve experienced how difficult it is to play against the likes of Arsenal, which is something we need to remember when we come across the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, Newcastle and Tottenham.
“We did really, really well and, of course, needed to finish the chances when we got them. We did with the first one - Mo’s goal was brilliant - but then there was one just before half-time when Kevin couldn’t quite dig it out from Mark Noble’s free-kick, and then in the second half Kevin has had two golden chances.
“The first one he has either got to just hit it or square it for Matt Jarvis, but instead he decided to come in on his left foot and lost it. That was a brilliant chance against an Arsenal team playing so well. Kevin also had a shot with his left foot from the edge of the box and he normally doesn’t miss those, as we know.
“Then Andy has had his header. The ‘keeper has come and thought he could catch it and Andy has outjumped him and won the header and the goal was open and free and unfortunately the ball dropped the wrong side of the post. We’ll look back at those and think that, at one-one, that would have put us in front.”